


Protector

by hrhrionastar



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Episode: s01e22 Reckoning, Gen, Reckoning AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 14:36:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhrionastar/pseuds/hrhrionastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darken Rahl is a family man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Protector

Alice clutched the baby Princess Elena to her breast. Her grip was not very firm, since the hand not supporting the baby's head was reaching blindly for the doorknob. Her eyes were fixed on a rapidly approaching, blatantly feminine shadow. Heels clicked on the mahogany floor.  
  
Alice swallowed.  
  
" _What_ are you doing?"  
  
The voice was harsh, full of the kind of exasperation that suggested sudden, fatal accidents. It came from quite close, on Alice's left.  
  
Darken Rahl stepped out from behind a tapestry that concealed a secret passage. His ancestors had been suspicious, as well as practical—a hidden route out of the People's Palace in case of a mob, a handy storage area for the bones of murdered enemies at other times, and of course the romance of looking for the thing as innocent children, ordering around the sons and daughters of servants. What wasn't to admire about a secret passage?  
  
Darken Rahl was intimidating in red, although the robes he usually wore billowed and swirled exactly like a lady's skirts. In mourning black, he was terrifying.  
  
He glared.  
  
Alice nearly dropped the infant princess.  
  
The Mord'Sith appeared around the corner. She took in Alice and Lord Rahl and the baby, still miraculously not crying, and then stood very still, one hip cocked.  
  
Alice had frozen when they appeared, but a tiny flicker of hope began leaking back through her veins. If they didn't guess…  
  
"Excuse me, my lord, mistress," she said, dropping her eyes and bending her knees in the fastest curtsy ever. Baby Elena cooed on the upswing.  
  
"Where are you taking her?" asked Lord Rahl.  
  
"Upstairs for a nap, my lord," Alice lied.  
  
"That isn't the way to the nursery," Lord Rahl observed, still in that deadly calm voice. "Give her to me." He held out his hands for his daughter.  
  
Alice snapped. The sight of those hands, all strong and clean like Kahlan's blood wasn't on them—she had to blink back tears.  
  
"Never!" she hissed. Elena squirmed a little, and Alice tightened her grip. "I'll never give her to you! If Queen Kahlan knew her only child was in your wicked clutches it would kill her!"  
  
Wicked clutches? Dahlia raised her eyebrows. But Lord Rahl was too intent on the nursemaid and the princess to see the ridiculous side to all this. Anger smoked off of him like heat, scraping against Dahlia's nerves and making her agiel hum.  
  
"The queen is dead," Dahlia observed.  
  
"But of course," said Alice, " _you_ wanted a boy."  
  
Darken took a step forward. "Did Kahlan tell you that?"  
  
Alice flinched, arm tightening around Elena's tiny body. "Stay away!"  
  
Darken didn't think the nursemaid would hurt Elena on purpose. But it wouldn't take intent. Babies were helpless, utterly vulnerable. Rahl magic, assuming she had any, wouldn't help Elena now. Nor would latent Confessor powers inherited from her mother.  
  
Only Darken could save his daughter. She was his to protect.  
  
He signaled to Dahlia, a tiny gesture he doubted the nursemaid even saw through her tear-clouded eyes. Dahlia came subtly to attention, shoulders moving back and neck arching until she could look down her nose at the maid.  
  
"What do you intend with all this?" asked Dahlia.  
  
Darken didn't listen to the nursemaid's teary, defiant reply. He watched her. A new and horrible thought had occurred to him.  
  
Kahlan had thought he wanted a boy. Had she enlisted this maid's help in some sort of assisted suicide? Just to make sure Elena was the only child she ever bore?  
  
Abandoning her daughter?  
  
Darken Rahl knew nothing of the fierce need that had driven Kahlan Amnell to marry him and give him a child. He knew nothing of the future she envisioned, of the Seeker who would one day return. Until this afternoon he had scarcely known of her maid's existence.  
  
But the secret mission laid upon her by Kahlan in the last months of the Mother Confessor's life burned in Alice's mind in letters of fire. It didn't take more than ordinary intuition to sense the shape of her thoughts, if not their content. And Darken Rahl had significantly more than ordinary intuition.  
  
Darken had stood at his wife's bedside and watched her last farewell to her infant daughter. He dismissed the fear that she had voluntarily left Elena motherless. Whatever she thought of him, their daughter had held her whole heart.  
  
"Just—let me go," Alice said, not believing it. "I'll look after her."  
  
Elena whimpered.  
  
Probably her negative reaction was to the maid's too-tight grip and lack of attention, but Dahlia was unsurprised to see Lord Rahl tense still further. He would hear that whimper as a personal plea, a direct response to the maid's words.  
  
As if Lord Rahl would really just let someone walk off with a child of his.  
  
He wouldn't make that mistake again.  
  
Alice still had her eyes on Dahlia. No doubt she sensed that, of her two enemies, the Mord'Sith was the more sympathetic, if only because she'd had no love for the dead queen and her interest in the fate of the baby princess was tepid at best.  
  
Nonetheless, Dahlia knew her duty. She stepped closer.  
  
"Confessors belong in Aydindril!" Alice shrieked.  
  
They were her last words. Lord Rahl had faded from the maid's blurry peripheral vision and now stood directly behind her, dagger in hand. His grim eyes met Dahlia's for one last semi-telepathic command before he slashed Alice's throat.  
  
Dahlia snatched the baby from the dying woman's suddenly loosened grasp and stepped back. A few drops of blood landed on her leathers, but the tiny princess remained unscathed. Lord Rahl let the body slump to the floor.  
  
Dahlia had to squint to see Princess Elena clearly, because the baby's face was so close to hers. A tiny frown creased the infant's forehead. Dark blue eyes stared into Dahlia's.  
  
The Mord'Sith inhaled shakily. Princess Elena's open palm rested against her throat.  
  
 _Confessors belong in Aydindril…far away from here._  
  
"Give her to me," Lord Rahl said again. This time he was obeyed.  
  
Darken tucked Elena securely against his shoulder. It eased his heart to have her there, under his hands. Safe.  
  
His robes swirled blackly as he turned for the nursery, and briefly snagged on an outstretched hand. Reminded, he glanced down.  
  
"And send someone to clean that up," said Lord Rahl.


End file.
